TheAndyEllisBlog

In my former life as a debate coach I saw this type of thing a lot.  Teams I coached ran arguments that overlap with what the Occupy movement represents. Defenders of the status quo would dismiss these arguments as idealistic, law breaking, brash, uninformed…they would make jokes about hippies, drugs, showers…pinpoint instances of individual racism, sexism, violence, anti-semitism….

For a while these defensive arguments paid off an kept the criticism and the critics at bay.  Most of these things are not really arguments as much as they are suggestions. “If you were not so uninformed then we could have a debate” only works until you are no-longer uninformed. “You are  dirty hippie lawbreakers” only works as an argument until the park gets cleaned up . And so on.

What ends up happening is that while defenders of the status quo are busy dismissing the opposition the opposition is getting good at not only overcoming those defenses but at also at making their “idealistic” “uninformed” argument, better nd able to speak to more people.

The opposition to the occupy movement has yet to come up with one good argument against their criticisms or their demands, not one argument that says “you are wrong”.

If they don’t have an argument, and can’t explain that argument to normal people, then occupy is not going anywhere anytime soon.

So today it snowed. More then they expected, but then again every one expected that.

  It was the kind of snow you know is going to stick because it was dancing on the road when it first started to fall. The road was not wet for a good while as the small but steady snowflakes drifted across the interstate swept by the wind and the cars.

Once I got to work around noon it was snowing for real. It was a december storm that had some real cold behind it, and as long as there was moisture it was gonna be bad. It seems like the last few years our biggest snows have been about moisture and not about temperature. That was the case today as well

At the end it was not that bad, the drive home was reasonable, though it is it seems even colder now.

I have not included any pictures, because after last year this does not feel worthy of a photograph.

This weekend, or next week we may get one of those days worthy of a picture.

The long hot summer is over, and I am happy to see it go. As eager as i am though for the changing of the seasons two things happened that truly marked this summer for me. At the beginning of the season on memorial day weekend I met a loving, brilliant, and wonderful woman who makes me very happy. At the end of the summer I got a job. As far as the things a job is supposed to do, it will be the best job i have ever had.  These two things are very important to me. But i’m not gonna talk about either of them in detail in this post, those things stay on the other side of the privacy barrier. That being said, lets get to it.

I wanna be a billionare….

My entrepreneurial dreams began to fade long before this summer began, but by the time the summer came around I had to settle for the fact that working for myself was not sustainable and that i would need to find gainful employment. If you or anybody you know is searching for a job, has been searching for a job, or might soon be searching  you know how painful this can be. I spent many a hot summer day scanning craigslist, idealist.com, and every other job board i could. A rough count of files named resume.doc indicates that i applied for nearly 90 jobs. Most of them didn’t even communicate with me.

It was devastating to my psyche, self worth and, finances. At many points i thought a zero capital business start-up like B’More Connected was a better option, I also took lots of risks, worked lots of free ventures that might turn into paid jobs, and even fell in love with a few jobs which I did not get.

Gainful employment had eluded me since i left the Baltimore Urban Debate League in the summer of 2007 and employment period had been lacking since the day before the Blizzard… It was a hard time, and i’ll never forget it…when im 80 i’ll talk about the great recession, and remind my grand kids that even when times are at their toughest, you have to keep struggling…

I will miss the chance to devote my full time energy to B’More Connected, but by the end of the summer the addition of a new job had made this (amongst everything else) much easier to conceptualize…it will continue, in a new form, more on that soon.

I picked up trash off roads

 In today’s America not having a job does not mean you don’t have to pay your bills, so i did what ever i could to be able to earn money. I continued to work as a hoop carney, did some digital odd jobs, did some work on the farm, and considered a whole bunch of jobs i had never even thought about doing. By the end of the summer I had turned this into a job with a BCPSS elementary middle school. My job? Pick up the grounds every morning.

As a person who has written books, coached national debate champions, and  led successful campaigns for social justice this was not ideal, but it was real, it was money, and it helped me feel like i wasn’t destined to be unemployable for ever.

This job taught me a lot (and it still does, i do it every morning, i get to watch the sun rise over the city i love, and make sure kids get to go to a clean and safe school). Even though i have spent the last few years poor, I haven’t had to do a job like this in a long time, ive learned some working class sensibility, ive learned that when you love someone you do what you have to do, and i’ve learned that if we want to have good schools for the children of our city we all need to think about how we treat the places where our city’s children learn.

Your love

I mentioned in the introduction to this post that I found a wonderful woman, who i very much love and care about. This has introduced me to the wonderful world of doing stuff. I cherished many a Saturday or Sunday that involved going places that i would never go by my self. This includes places that require money, but also just fun things to do with another person. This doing stuff with another person stuff helped me to realize that I don’t have to make apologies for my identity, I don’t have to be political at every instance, and that life is much more than what you say you believe in. A long time friend put it this way ” you are more much more effective and credible as an agent of change if you are not always thinking about how what you are doing brings about a more just world.”

Well put, King. I love politics. I love working for social justice, but for too long i had put that above the love of myself and the love of another. I would only do things that fit my ideological commitment to a better world, and I wasn’t a very fun person.

Now I’m not saying i am the life of the party, but i have realized this summer that there is more to life than what you say, what your blog says about walmart, and what your take on the latest city council hearing is. It takes a lot to be a complete person, and having another person to care about has let me do a ton of work on my self. It has let me be me and for that I can’t be thankful enough.

Dear Fall

 After a bunch of stuff that i have hated, and some things that i have loved, I can’t wait to return to the economy, to continue to build me, and to see life in a positive way. Things could change, they often do, but for now, I’m stronger for what i went through this summer, I’m a better person, and for the first time in years my happiness with my life is not something I am putting on simply to cover up despair.

No doubt there will be struggle ahead, that is life, but there is also hope for me and for that I am thankful beyond belief.

So it has been a really long time since I posted a personal blog…a really long time…But today is a day for starting anew…since April of last year i have been in the biggest struggle i have ever been in, i have begged, borrowed, and probably cheated at some things…but I can begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel…I have not had a steady job since may of 2009, and even then i had to struggle with that job, ive done a combination of jobs, businesses, and good stuff since then, but i desperately needed something stable…especially since june of this year when i found myself in a relationship with a wonderful, caring, brilliant, and beautiful woman. Something about all of that has helped me to see that i need a life i can enjoy, not just one of pure sacrifice and scraping by…so I have been looking like you wouldnt believe for the last 3 months…and Friday I found out that i got something…not just something, but a really good job with a fortune 500 company, that i have room to grow in and that will allow me to live like an adult…it has not really sunk in yet, and in the time between today and when it starts i am sure that there will be times where it feels just like the last 400 days, money and despair crushing me in a way that makes me hate the world…but 60 days from now, once the paychecks start flowing I will be not just in the best spot i have been in for the last 1000 days, but really ever.

So today, i let it sink in…i am excited, happy, and in love…but for the first time in a very long time part of that love is for me…and that is the best thing i can imagine right now…peace, take it easy, and welcome to the new old  blog it may not always be this kinda of introspection, but give me today…

PS-Go Ravens